Gen Z discovers Pakistani dramas and music through digital feeds

Young Indians are discovering Pakistani dramas including Dar-e-Nijaat and Mitti De Baway through digital platforms, while songs and performers reach new listeners through reels, streaming and online discussion. An October 21 account in India Today describes this cultural interest as continuing despite strained India-Pakistan relations.

The account, presented as commentary by a film policy expert and media commentator, identifies shows, musicians and shared traditions behind that interest. It does not provide audience totals, platform viewing data or a survey of young Indians, so its description of growing engagement should not be read as a quantified generational shift.

Television and music find new routes to Indian audiences

Pakistani television previously reached Indian viewers through channels such as Zindagi, with Humsafar and Zindagi Gulzar Hai helping establish an audience. Digital discovery now offers another route, beyond the television networks and formal collaborations that shaped earlier exchanges.

Among the newer examples, the account highlights Dar-e-Nijaat for its treatment of faith, redemption and social contradictions. It describes Mitti De Baway, featuring Mahira Khan and Wahaj Ali, as a Punjabi story involving class, love and revenge. Discussion of performances, settings and storytelling is central to the appeal it identifies.

Music travels through similarly informal channels. Ali Sethi and Shae Gill’s Pasoori is cited as a prominent cross-border success, while Abdul Hannan and Hasan Raheem represent a contemporary Pakistani sound. Songs including Alfaz and Paar Chhanade draw on the Punjabi and Urdu musical vocabulary familiar to listeners across the region.

The distinction is between discovering an artist and organising an exchange: a listener can encounter a track through a reel or recommendation without a concert, film collaboration or official cultural programme. Political and regulatory restrictions can nevertheless affect the availability and visibility of that content.

A digital audience for an older musical connection

This interest builds on a much longer history. Reshma’s Lambi Judaai featured in Subhash Ghai’s 1983 film Hero. Mehdi Hassan’s ghazals, Ghulam Ali’s Chupke Chupke Raat Din and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’s qawwalis also found appreciative listeners in India.

Later, Atif Aslam and Rahat Fateh Ali Khan became familiar voices in Hindi cinema. The account places these successive waves of listening within traditions of Urdu poetry, Punjabi folk music, Sufi expression and Hindustani classical influences that predate Partition.

Its argument is not that digital platforms created cultural familiarity, but that they have changed how younger audiences encounter it. Streaming recommendations and social sharing sit alongside the film soundtracks, recordings and television broadcasts that introduced earlier generations to these performers.

Shared styles do not establish shared political positions

The cultural interest described extends to Pakistani fashion, wedding aesthetics, traditional jewellery and digital creators. Historical connections between Lucknow and Lahore—in Urdu poetry, social customs, clothing and food—provide some of the familiar reference points. The exchange also runs in the other direction, with Indian cinema, music and popular culture influencing Pakistani audiences.

The account explicitly separates these affinities from questions of terrorism, national security, diplomatic mistrust and political accountability. Watching a drama or enjoying a song does not, by itself, demonstrate support for the policies of Pakistan’s government.

That distinction also sets the limits of the trend: entertainment preferences can reveal curiosity and cultural familiarity, but they cannot establish that political differences have narrowed or security concerns have diminished.